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Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 371, 31 October 1889, Page 2

The following bit of early history is given by the Taranaki Budget'• Although visited by Sydney traders for the purpose of dealing with the Natives, no settlement of Europeans was established at Port Nicholson till 1840. when the Naw Zealand Company’s vessels began to arrive. Mr W. B. Bhodea is reported to have bean the first to have visited thia portion of the colony, trading there in his barque Eleanor, from Sydney, so far back as 18§5. Mr claimed to l)ave bought all the land from Bort Nicholson to Ahurirl «, and from Wairoa river tq Table >r £l6O worth of beads, blankets, etc. Of course this huge purchase proved a valueless one. Old identities record it of Rhodes that he used to buy land along the shores of New Zealand from the Maoris, and, after each bargain was made, he would take 0(7 bis hat, and reverently exclaim : * I take pbssbeslon of this land in the name of God, Mnd Smith,- And Joeee, wholesale merchants, Sydney.’ Previous to the ship Tory visiting Pqrt Nicholson there was no white people there, and therefore Wellington can only claim to be the second setuemeqt' of Europeans in New Zealand, tbe Bay of Islands being the first. Tbe late Rev. Mr Hobbs, who visited tbe distrlgt in 1839, thus refers to the place:—• In 1889, when tbs Bov. John gumby and I visited Cook Strait in a small Vessel called the Harriot Leethart we went to Port Nidholsoni where we found one white men, at the mernh ot ths river called the Hutt, who was trying to build a boat with naiie U was making out of iron hooka left by whalidg parties who had removed to Cloudy Bay.’ •